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[diffusionx]

The lack of Total War votes is disappointing.

I never thought of Total War as a RTS, more like a 4X game with a real time battle system.

 

[Krappadizzle]

I never thought of Total War as a RTS, more like a 4X game with a real time battle system.

I always looked at it in the opposite view, a RTS games with 4x-lite parts.

 

[ethomaz]

Here's the burning question on my mind:

which RTS has the best unit sounds of all time?

wololo rogan?

Need a light?

Zergs in Starcraft has the best sound units in all RTS I played.

 

[ethomaz]

Even though StarCraft and Warcraft 3 (until they fucked it up) are the games I've returned to over the years, I still think Age of Empires 3 is the best of genre even though I only played it the once through. It didn't exactly hook me in a addicting way but the pacing of it was just fantastic, pure perfection. I spent the best part of the last decade, since I played it for the first time waiting for Age of Empires 4 and it never came so I never returned to that game nor does it have an nostalgia in my mind like Warcraft or Starcraft to get me to return, now but nothing ever topped it. Starcraft 2, was a majour disappointment and every new release since has been too much for my laptop to play in any sort of decent way but I've read great things about Frost punk which I've been meaning to pick up since it dropped on PS4.

My next RTS will be Fire Emblem three houses however and if all I've read is true, it'll reach best in genre for me.

Weird because AoE2 is vastly better than AoE3.

 

[ethomaz]

People who voted starcraft 1 have a serious case of rose tainted nostalgia glasses.
The unit AI is dogshit and the single player mission are very basic and not that interesting to play.
Starcraft 2 is practically better in every way.

Sure StarCraft 2 had better mission design... everything else lacked compared with StarCraft.

 

[post-S]

Red Alert is king.
I didn’t like the later trend that obsess with micromanagement at all.

 

[Makariel]

The genre peaked with Broodwar, everything before or after pales compared with it.

 

[Heisenberg007]

Stronghold Crusader & Age of Empires! So many good childhood / teenage memories.

 

[DrJohnGalt]

Total War, hands down. So many of the others are just a game of attrition with little or no diplomacy, politics, or grand strategy elements.

 

[Beer Baelly]

TOTALA

 

[Lokaum D+]

so many memories

 

[anab0lic36]

1) Total Annihilation - with all the fan made units/maps. Cool as hell mech designs with Incredible visuals for its time and one of the best soundtracks in all of video games. Leaned more towards macro - rock, paper, scissor strategies than intense micro, which I prefer. It had freaking NUKES! (and anti nukes!) A commander unit that was a bit of a glass cannon that you had to protect at all costs, stealth air bombers, radar jammers, Long range artillery's.... the unit variation really did allow for a wide range of viable strategies. A resource/ economy system you had to balance well, it really did do so many things right from a gameplay standpoint. The single player was kinda mediocre and underdeveloped, in multiplayer with the dan made mods is where it really shined. So much fun playing this one on Lan with my buddies back in the day, though I ended up getting quite a bit better at it than them and they refused to play me in the end. Too bad that the license is being sat on by someone that doesn't seem to want to do anything with it, would love to see a true modern sequel/remake, really all the game needs is the visuals to be brought up to todays standards.... Which reminds me, I need to look more into 'Beyond all reason' as that looks to possible be just that, but under a different name. Enjoyed its 'spiritual successor' sup com, but not nearly as much. What is Chris Taylor doing these days?

2) Dawn of war - I grew up collecting, painting and occasionally playing the 40k game, so theme was an instant draw for me, but just so happens relic created a great game mechanically underneath all that. I Loved the requisition capture system combined with reinforcement to squads on the fly, that meant you were rewarded by playing more aggressively to fight for map control instead of just sitting back and turtling. More micro demanding than the other two in this list, but not to where it becomes too APM intensive like in starcraft. Lots of different build orders/tech trees and strategies to explore. Didn't like the direction they took with the second and the third one was a RTS/Moba abomination, that ended up not really pleasing fans of either genre. After the failure that was III I'm not sure we will see another in this series anytime soon.

3) C&C Generals + Zero hour - Easily the best C&C game, so much variation between all the different factions with the asymmetrical units and abilities. Never did get to play this one vs human opponents (though from what I've seen/heard it does that very well), the single player campaign was plenty enjoyable though. I recall it being quite challenging and loved how the enemy AI's would shit talk you during the game, the voice acting of said generals was rather amusing, the chemical weapons guy being the best of the bunch. xD Was sad to see the remake of this get cancelled, feel like that could have been a huge success if it was handled better.

Honourable mention to Dark reign too, I never hear that one get talked about, it had quite a few things going for it. Them seismic tanks tho...

Would love to see this genre brought back from the dead, maybe if AOE4 or the new Homeworld turns out decent other devs might see there is still a demand for these type of games.

 

[Guileless]

Dark Reign is a under-appreciated gem. Its on GoG but not sure how it holds up now. Pretty ancient.

 

[Aegsorciten]

Dawn of war 1 + DLC because I'm a massive warhammer fan and a previous player in my youth, Tyranids FTW, to bad they weren't in DOW1, atleast necrons were. I'll give Dune II a nod because I played it alot on Amiga (Greatest computers of all time, man I regret selling my 500 and 1200, However I have an C64 used one time with perfect packaning and everything )

 

[93xfan]

I always loved Red Alert:aftermath. Would always be the side with the Tesla Coils and loved building up a squad of planes to take out their HQ

 

[V4skunk]

If you're an RTS player, you should give it a try. Game's not bad at all. The thing is, it's just a bad Dawn of War game compared to what the series have achieved.

Lol it single handed nearly took Relic out, the game is a garbage dota/RTS hybrid that no one wanted. We were screaming for years we wanted Dow1/coh hybrid with base building.
The only good thing about dow3 is that it looks good and runs well.
Honestly going from coh2 to dow3 is one of the biggest crashes of all time.

 

[bumleforce]

Can we get Ogrebattle 64 put on the list or does that not count?

 

[John2290]

Weird because AoE2 is vastly better than AoE3.

I've been told.

 

[Dr.brain64]

Starcraft and command and conquer.

Ah how I miss those times.